Context
Ansel Adams (Feb. 20 1902 — Apr. 22, 1984) was born in San Francisco, California. Adams grew up in a house set amid the sand dunes of the Golden Gate. In Adams’s childhood he displayed joy in nature. Adams like photographing landscaped but another photographer had a powerful impact on Adams and helped to move him away from the “pictorial” style. Adams began to pursue “straight photography,” in which the clarity of the lens was emphasised, and the final print gave no appearance of being manipulated in the camera or the darkroom. Techniques such as “burning” and “dodging”, as well as the Zone System, a scientific system developed by Adams, is used specifically to “manipulate” the tonality and give the artist the ability to create as opposed to record.
Images
This image was taken by Ansel Adams who focuses on the history of America via landscape images. His work also focuses on the zone system which shows the difference between the darker and lighter tones within a black and white image. In this image he has used darker tones to display the negative factors of this land use. In the image we can see a motorway with lots of cars driving along the road, the road is in the middle of what looks like a field which links to the negative use of land. Originally this was a big field but because humans needed a way of transportation we had to create roads in place of these fields. I like his use of the black and white filter because it draws the attention away from the colours within the image and focuses on the negative atmosphere. This image can be seen to be abstract which links to some of the other photographers I have looked at because the roads are not straight and all lead to different destinations. We can also focus on the cars in this image because each one has a different destination and these roads are helping them reach it. I would like to use Adams ideas within my work because I like his idea of the zone system and this is useful to my work because I want to document the majority of my images in black and white.
In this image we can see a single road running in the middle of a field. The image is documented in black and white like the majority of Adams images, he uses the zone system within his work so the darker tones and lighter tones are visible in this image. He has used the darker tones in the sections next to the road so the road is the main focus of the image, this shows how his work is associated more with the man-made land uses. The deeper meaning behind this image could be associated with how the natural elements in the image are not visible showing how the man-made land uses are taking over. This meaning is expressed clearly due to the tones of black and white used.
In this image we can see a road leading up to a building which looks like a church because of the structure of the building and the stained windows. The main focus of this image is the church as it is in the centre of the image and contains the lightest tones within the image. Unlike some of Adams other images this image uses lighter tones for both the natural and the man-made elements. The deeper meaning of this image shows that even though there isn't an actual road leading up to this building one has been man-made due to the amount of times people have driven to this building, this could relate to the importance of the building. With regards to land use, this image shows both man-made and natural land uses which could show how they both come together.
In this image we can see a stretch of water/land with a bridge in the right hand side of the image. The lighter tones of this image are present in the sky, the darker tones are elsewhere. The bridge looks extremely out of place because it it in the middle of water where we wouldn't normally see man-made structures like this. Adams focuses on the natural elements in his images which is clear here because 90% of the image is made up of natural elements. With regards to land use, he has shows in this image how the man-made land uses are slowly taking over as they are becoming present in places where we wouldn't normally see them.
In this image we can see a town, there are a few houses and buildings at the bottom of the bridge, the bridge is used for a road. This image corresponds well with the previous image because it gives us a wider view of the location where Adams took these images. In the previous photo it seems that we are just looking at a wide stretch of water but when looking at this image we can see how close the man-made structures are to the natural ones. With regards to the zone system, Adams uses both lighter and darker tones in the black and white image. This can also be linked to land use because it shows how both natural and man-made land uses come together and work closely together.
Influence and Summary
With regards to Ansel Adams and the way he has influenced my work, the main factor that he has given to my work is the use of the zone system. I have used his idea of this in my work by creating darker and lighter tones to the image to change the atmosphere, for example man-made land uses have a negative so I have used darker tones in images with these uses. Overall, I have taken a technical approach from this photographer and used it within my work.
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